


From the Side of the Ballroom

by Daisy_Rivers



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 09:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9650141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Rivers/pseuds/Daisy_Rivers
Summary: A Valentine's Day ficlet from more or less the same AU as "Provoke Outrage," although you don't need to be following that to read this.  This story takes place some years after the Second Insurrection of "Provoke Outrage" and assumes a positive outcome for that battle. It builds on the Peggy and Lafayette pairing that is the focus of that longer work and their future plans of a big house and lots of kids.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Gil has a plan for Valentine's Day. Of course he does.

Gil told Peggy they weren’t going out for Valentine’s Day, but that he had a plan. Gil always had a plan.

“So we’re staying home?” she asked.

“Mm-hm.”

“Anything else you can tell me?”

He smiled. “The children will be spending the night with Uncle John.”

“But it’s a school night.”

“John is aware of that.”

“I see.”

“And I’ve given Fatou and Oumar the afternoon off.”

She smiled back. “How very nice of you. And what time does this plan of yours begin?”

He thought for a minute. “I’d say at around four thirty in the afternoon.”

“Anything else I might need to know?”

“My plan is a surprise, _chérie,_ ” he reminded her.

“We’re not going out?”

He shook his head.

“So I can wear jeans?”

He kissed her lightly. “ _Chérie,_ you may wear anything you like, of course, and you are always beautiful. Perhaps, though, it would be helpful if I told you I will be wearing a suit and tie.”

Of course he was. She tilted her head and looked at him speculatively. He was still the best-looking man that she had ever seen, and in a suit and tie – _well_. Even now, right here in the kitchen, waiting for Delphine to bring the kids home from swimming lessons, right this minute, she could …

He caught her look and caught her mood and gave her that smile. Very gently, he trailed a finger down her cheek, her throat, to where the neckline of her sweater ended. She closed her eyes as he stretched the sweater just enough to stroke her along the top edge of her bra. _“Tu me tentes, ma belle,”_ he murmured, “but if Delphine were to walk in with the children and find us on the kitchen counter…”

She gave a little shriek and blushed furiously. “Stop!” she told him.

He laughed and pulled her to him, lifting her hair and kissing the back of her neck as she hid her face in his shoulder. “Mine,” he whispered, “all mine, always.”

“Forever,” she said, turning her face to him. He bent down and kissed her slowly and thoroughly, and they both jumped when they heard the back door open, and then the kitchen was full of children and noise.

She picked out a pretty dress for Gil’s Valentine’s Day plan. It wasn’t hard, because she had a closet full of pretty dresses to choose from. There had been a time, not so long ago, really, when she had lived with three pairs of jeans and five tee shirts, but now her clothes closet was the size their previous bedroom. Gil actually liked to go clothes shopping with her so he could buy her things.

“That’s not normal,” she had told him. “Husbands hate shopping.”

He shrugged. “I like it. I like to see you try things on. Everything looks nice on you because you’re so pretty.”

“You’re crazy.”

That just got another shrug and a smile. To be honest, she liked having him go with her. No matter what she did or where she was, it was more fun if Gil was with her. It was the sort of thing that still made Angelica roll her eyes.

Her clothes were meticulously arranged in the closet by occasion, length, and color, the whole thing having been organized by Herc, with careful instructions on how to keep it orderly. She decided on a short dress, rather than a ball gown, because Gil was only wearing a suit, not a tux. Maybe next year, his plan would require a tux – or scuba gear, who knew with Gil? – but a nice knee-length semi-formal would work this time. The one she picked out was an iridescent gray-blue silk with a pattern of pale pink cherry blossoms. It had a fitted top with a scoop neck and a bell skirt that flared out. She’d wear diamond earrings – well, of course she would, because Gil could hardly pass a jewelry store without buying her something. Just for fun, she’d add a pair of strappy silver sandals with really high heels. They weren’t her most comfortable shoes, but Gil thought they were sexy, so it was worth being a little unsteady on her feet.

John picked up the children at three, giving her a knowing look and promising to stuff them all with pizza and ice cream, much to their delight. He promised to have everyone at school on time in the morning, then gave her a quick kiss and whispered, “Have fun, sis!” in her ear. John was no doubt in on the plan, as usual. He always had been. Best brother ever, she thought, remembering when she hadn’t had a brother.

Gil had left the master bedroom and bath to her and was getting dressed in one of the guest rooms, because “I don’t want to spoil the surprise, _chérie._ ”

“What surprise?” she had asked, smiling, because really, after so many years together, how many surprises could there be?

“The surprise of seeing you and realizing once more how beautiful you are,” he said.

Gil always had the perfect answer.

Dressed and ready, her curls half up with a diamond – of course – clip, her make-up done, her sparkly sandals on, she sat on the edge of a chair in the master sitting room. She remembered Jack laughing at them when they talked about having a master suite with a sitting room. Well, Jack had been to the house often enough that even he admitted he should have taken them more seriously. She was smiling at the memory when her husband walked in.

He still made her heart beat faster, and she was very sure that he could be a model for any men’s fashion magazine. His suit was a dark charcoal gray, perfectly tailored. His shirt was snowy white, his tie was deep burgundy with a tiny design in it, and his cuff links were platinum. Still, there was nothing at all pretentious about him, and his curls were as wildly riotous as they were every day.

 _“Viens, chérie,_ ” he said, holding out his hand, and she took it and went with him.

They went to the staircase at the end of the hall, and he surprised her by going up, not down. They were going to the ballroom, then. She wondered what surprise he had arranged up there. The whole idea of the ballroom always made her smile, because, really, who had a ballroom in their house? At first, she had been sure that it would just be wasted space, but they had given Herc free rein to decorate it any way he liked, and the result had been spectacular. He had chosen to use the shades of rose and leaf green from the huge floral stained glass window at the west end of the room, and had the window seats reupholstered in rose velvet. The curtain that could close off the stage at the east end was made of the same fabric, with heavy ropes of green to tie it back. The walls were papered in an Art Nouveau design with a green background and pink flowers on winding vines. A wide couch below the stained glass window was covered in green velvet, and everywhere there were plush throws and soft pillows in shades of rose, green, gold, and blue.

Today when they reached the top of the stairs, Peggy saw that a table had been set out with an elegant afternoon tea.

“I thought you might like a tea party, _chérie,_ ” Gil said, gesturing to the table. He led her over to it and switched on the electric kettle. Fatou had prepared tiny sandwiches and a tiered stand with heart-shaped cakes iced in pink. There was a bowl of fresh strawberries on ice, with whipped cream to dip them in.

“Would you like a strawberry while we wait for the tea to brew?” he asked, his smile mischievous.

“Yes, please,” she responded like a polite child, smiling back at him.

He held the strawberry by the stem and dipped it into the whipped cream, then held it for her to bite. She got a bit of the whipped cream on her lip, so he bent down and licked it off for her, and she turned so that her mouth was on his. His arm went around her, and they took their time. He finally pulled back and said, “But I want to give you your Valentine’s Day present.”

“This isn’t it?” she asked.

“That’s some of it.” He took out his phone and clicked a couple of times, and suddenly the room was filled with music.

She spun around, laughing as she recognized Gershwin’s _An American in Paris._ “You did it!” she exclaimed. “How did you do it without me finding out?”

They had been talking about having a really good sound system wired into the ballroom so they could listen to quality music even if they didn’t hire live musicians. It was very nice to have a twenty-piece orchestra once or twice a year, but that required planning far in advance. If they just wanted to get some friends together, they had to rely on recorded music, and the sound quality was never very good in such a big room. Somehow, Gil had arranged to have the sound system installed secretly to surprise her.

“It required some planning and some help from Fatou and Oumar,” he told her. “Why do you think Fatou kept reviewing your schedule over and over?”

“I was wondering if she was getting forgetful,” Peggy laughed.

“When you went to the dentist or the hairdresser, we had the electricians in doing the noisy things. Otherwise, we would just sneak workmen in the back door when you were somewhere else in the house.”

She tilted her head back and listened to the music. “It sounds wonderful,” she said.

“It does, doesn’t it? I’m very pleased with the result. And now, _chérie, danse avec moi?_ ”

“Ballet?” she asked doubtfully. “In these shoes? It’s not exactly …”

 _“Non, ma belle, mais tu sais danser.”_ He clicked on his phone again, and a new song started, “Over and Over Again,” the one that they said would have been “their song,” if they had been the kind of couple who had a song. He took her in his arms and they moved onto the dance floor.

“Remember the first time we danced?” he asked her.

“Mm-hm, Alex and Eliza’s wedding.”

“You looked so beautiful.”

“In my maternity bridesmaid’s gown,” she laughed.

“You are never more beautiful than when you are pregnant,” he told her.

“So you have said.”

“Maybe we should think about that again soon.”

She moved closer to him. “Maybe we should.”

His arms came around her tightly and they finished the dance pressed close together like teenagers, swaying to the music. When the song finished, he clicked it back to Gershwin and turned the volume down.

“Have I told you that you are beautiful today?” he asked.

She thought about it. “As a matter of fact, I don’t think you have.”

 _“Alors,”_ he said, taking her hand and leading her back to the tea table, “ _tu es très belle, ma chérie.”_

 _“Merci, cheri,_ ” she responded, _“et toi, tu es le plus beau.”_

He pulled chairs up to the table and they nibbled on the tiny sandwiches, which turned out to be lobster salad, and the cakes, both chocolate and vanilla under their icing, sipping tea from porcelain cups. The sun had been sinking lower in the sky, and as they ate, it reached the level of the stained-glass window, flooding the room with a rainbow of colors, the way it had the first time they had been here.

“I never get tired of looking at that,” she murmured.

“That’s the rest of your Valentine’s Day present,” he said. “I wanted to give you light and music. That’s really beyond my ability, so I came as close as I could. I want your world to always be filled with beautiful things.”

She reached out her hand, “Gil, _chéri_ …”

He kissed her hand. “I love you so much. Come with me, and we can sit in the light.”

She went with him to the couch in front of the window and looked at the colors as they played across his face. She reached up and laid her hand on his cheek. He closed his eyes and turned into it, kissing her palm gently.

He looked at her and smiled. “There are rainbows in your hair,” he said.

“Because you buy me diamonds,” she reminded him.

“Only because I can’t buy you actual rainbows.”

“Gil, my love, you know I have everything I ever wanted, don’t you?”

He pulled her to him for a kiss. “But please can I keep giving you things? It makes me happy.”

“You are crazy,” she reminded him.

 _“Chérie,_ you loved me when I could give you nothing,” he told her. “You loved me when we were hungry and cold and when our lives were in danger every minute.”

“There has never been a moment since the first time I saw you when you have given me nothing. From that instant, you began giving me more love than I ever knew was possible. All that time that things were hard, those things didn’t matter. I was only scared when you weren’t with me.”

“And still, I want to be with you every minute.”

She nodded. “I feel the same way. Eliza says I’m insane, by the way.”

He grinned. “That’s because Alex is much harder to put up with than I am.”

“Well, that’s true,” she agreed. “Do you suppose he ever stops talking? I would think it would get annoying …” she looked up and saw the quizzical smile on his face and blushed.

“I love that you still blush,” he laughed. “ _Tu es adorable._ ” He kissed her again, very softly, his tongue moving slowly across her lips as he held her face between his hands. He sighed and his thumb made little circles on her cheek, down to her jaw, and then to her throat. Carefully, he lifted her onto the couch so she was lying down next to him. He began to touch her breast through the silk of her dress, tracing the shapes of the colored light that spread over her. She caught her breath and arched toward him, and he had to remind himself again that she really was his wife, that this beautiful woman so soft and willing beneath his hands would be his for the rest of his life. From that first moment he saw her, scared and lost, he had loved her, and in all the years since, there had never been a moment when he doubted it.

“ _Petit mouton,_ ” he whispered, and she smiled.

His hand went to her leg, and he caressed the soft skin on the back of her knee, a sensitive spot that he had discovered, much to his delight, only after they had been together for several years. She gasped and a shiver went through her. He slid his hand up under her short skirt, up the inside of her thigh, and felt the silky fabric of her underpants already damp. He slipped one finger inside the elastic and began to tease her with tiny strokes.

Peggy whimpered and pushed herself toward him.

“I would like to take your pretty dress off, _chérie_ , so that I can see the light on your skin,” he told her.

“Please,” she said, both permission and supplication.

He reached under her and unzipped the dress, unfastening her bra at the same time. Even in the moment, she smiled at the fact that Gil had always been extremely knowledgeable about women’s clothing and how to unfasten, unbutton, and remove it. There had never been any awkward fumbling. Now, he gently pulled her dress down over her hips and off, leaving her in sheer white underpants and silver sandals that sparkled in the light. He stood up, his eyes on her, as he took off his suit jacket and kicked off his shoes. He unknotted his tie, then took a few minutes to kneel beside her and taste her breasts, his tongue circling each nipple in turn, and then his mouth taking her in, sucking, his teeth just scraping across the most sensitive part until she arched up, pushing herself toward him. He knew she liked that, and he kept it up, unbuttoning his shirt with one hand, throwing it on the floor, then finally getting rid of his pants and boxers.

He leaned back and watched the colored light on her face and her breasts and her stomach turning his beautiful girl into an enchanted being. She pulled him to her, the light on his face green and blue and gold, so that the face she knew as well as her own took on a guise of mystery that was incredibly arousing, as if he were a magical stranger. He kissed between her breasts, and then his mouth moved down to her navel, while the light on his back shifted in blues and greens like iridescent scales. When his mouth went lower, she was panting with longing, wanting to feel what he could do to her. He lifted his head to look at her and she saw in his eyes that he was sensing the same thing she was, that the colors that flickered over her face as she moved changed her too, and that this intersection of the familiar and the unknown made every touch and every movement new and electrifying. The hand that pulled off her underpants was lit with violet, and then the violet spilled over onto her leg. She raised herself up on her elbow so she could watch, and he tilted her hips with his arm to give her a better look. She saw the light on herself, her skin purple and rose and green as his fingers opened her, as fantastic as if she was watching him in a dream. When his tongue flicked inside her, she was startled by it, her hips jerking, and then suddenly, she felt herself melting into his mouth, trying to open her legs even farther, wanting him with an urgency that made her beg for more. His tongue circled slowly and softly, pulling her to the edge but not letting her go over.

She curled toward him, tangling her hands in his curls, watching glints of colored light flicker through his hair. He slid down, trailing his tongue along the inside of her thigh and then leaning back to watch the light on her as she tried to pull him closer. As the sun sank lower, the colors changed, and he lifted her into a pool of gold rimmed with blue. She watched his hand turn blue, then gold, then move out of her sight as he slipped two fingers into her. It was as if he was pulling golden light inside of her, scissoring his fingers to stretch her and tease her. She twisted and tried to get her legs around his waist, and then in one movement he was over her, a band of deep rose crossing his shoulder and blending into bright green down his arm. It was so beautiful – he was so beautiful. She looked up into his face, and his eyes met hers. He bent down and kissed the ribbons of blue and purple on her face, then followed the trail of blue down her neck. Her belly was covered with pinks and yellows, and, watching the colors move as she trembled, he slid into her. She pushed hard to meet him, and the colors on her shifted again, and he rocked back and forth, making love to a girl made of rainbows, until she met him in an explosion of colored light.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed this, whether you're already readers of "Provoke Outrage" or not. Please let me know! I love to hear from readers and try to respond to comments promptly. Happy Valentine's Day to everyone!


End file.
